Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest

Chapter 1038: Chapter 246.2 – Sister

“Oh, I’ve found my answer.”

Leonard’s gaze sharpened. Just slightly. Just enough to count.

He didn’t speak—but something in the angle of his shoulders changed. Subtle tension. The kind that only ever came from a shift in equation.

“You have?” he asked, voice low, careful.

“Mhm.” She stretched her legs just slightly, crossing them the other way with languid grace. “Not all answers need to be loud. Some of them are… quiet. Sunlit. Golden.”

Leonard’s jaw tightened—not with anger. With calculation.

That phrasing.

But before he could press her, before the space between them could narrow into confrontation—

A soft tone sounded at the front of the carriage as another sigil-lock disengaged.

The door hissed open.

A new figure stepped in.

Tall, broad-shouldered, with neatly trimmed hair and a long, midnight-blue coat marked by the seven-pointed sigil of Silverhammer Guild. His boots clicked sharply on the floor, and the faint smell of lightning mana trailed faintly behind him like ozone after a clean cut.

Thorne Halwick.

Senior scout. Known for poaching prodigies before their second semester.

And for never smiling.

He glanced between the two already seated, registering the tension without comment.

“Quite the day,” he said dryly as he moved to lean against the forward pillar.

Velvetin recovered instantly, her tone light once again. “Indeed it was,” she said. “Full of surprises.”

Thorne gave her a look—flat, unreadable—then nodded once at Leonard. “You saw her, too.”

Leonard didn’t ask who, since from how this was going, asking would blow his cover possibly.

Velvetin arched a brow, amused. “Her? Singular? You’re already staking a claim?”

Thorne shrugged once. “You don’t need ten miracles when one will shift the warboard.”

Leonard’s eyes flicked between them, assessing.

“Plenty of miracles showed up today,” he said calmly. “Depends on how you define it.”

Velvetin laughed under her breath. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Everyone’s got different definitions.” She turned her gaze back to Thorne.

Her gaze lingered on Thorne for a beat longer—curious, needling, faintly amused.

“So tell me, Silverhammer—who’s on your list tonight? Which miracle are you chasing?”

Her lips curved faintly. “Let me guess. That claymore girl from the dusk team—Thessa Verrin, was it? The one who cleaved through the bone wyrm with brute charm and no regard for balance?”

Thorne exhaled through his nose. “Raw. But effective.”

Velvetin tilted her head. “Or maybe Kellen Drayce. That boy with the spectral binding technique. Unrefined, but the way he layered summons through shifting terrain? That’s an entire school’s worth of tactical layering. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Too twitchy,” Thorne said. “Wouldn’t last under pressure.”

“Oh, I liked him,” Velvetin sighed. “He fought like someone who grew up praying to survive.”

Thorne raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

She tapped her lower lip once, thoughtfully. Then added—

“There’s also that Weaver-type from the fifth trial. Aeryn Marchal. The one who never even stepped forward, but still controlled two flanks at once.” She smiled lazily. “People like that go unnoticed. Until they’re the last one standing.”

Thorne finally pushed off the pillar, adjusting his coat. “She’s interesting. But she’s not the one who turned the room upside down.”

Velvetin’s lashes dropped.

“Ah,” she said softly. “So we circle back to her.”

Leonard remained silent.

But then Velvetin looked directly at him.

“Gracewind.”

That was the name she chose to speak aloud.

And in that moment—Leonard’s eyes flicked upward.

Sharp.

Quick.

Just once.

But enough to catch her attention.

Velvetin saw it.

Of course she did.

Her smile was slow and surgical. She didn’t comment. Didn’t press.

She didn’t need to.

Because she’d seen what she came for.

Thorne, ever practical, gave a short nod. “You saw that casting sequence. That wasn’t a burst. It was deliberate sequencing. Three support frames, one offensive. Fully internal. Fully field-stable. Mid-dungeon, post-collapse.” He paused. “Most people would’ve died. She cleared it.”

“Golden-threaded energy,” Velvetin murmured. “Not just rare. Custom. Not taught.”

“Which means someone trained her—or she inherited something ancient,” Thorne said flatly. “Either way, she’s not going to stay low-tier for long.”

The words moved through the air like quiet knives.

Not cruel.

Just… true.

Leonard said nothing.

Not because he disagreed.

But because he hadn’t known.

Not the casting pattern.

Not the spell resonance.

Not the field tempo.

Not even the fight.

He hadn’t seen it.

Because he hadn’t been watching her.

His sister.

The one person who had sat across from him just days ago, smiling with warmth and uncertainty and pride—asking him, almost shyly, to watch when the time was right.

“When we’re stronger. Then come.”

And he hadn’t.

He’d been filtering candidate lists. Whisper-marking cadets. Talking to dead ends and walking shadowed hallways.

He’d been watching everyone else.

And now?

Now she wasn’t just being talked about.

A flicker of guilt.

Not sharp.

Not self-loathing.

Just… weight.

I promised her.

He hadn’t said it aloud, of course. But he had made the choice in his own way.

“I’ll watch when the time is right.”

And the time had come—and passed—without him.

Now others had seen it.

And he had not.

That makes me a liar.

Not to the Church.

Not to the mission.

But to her.

Leonard’s gaze dropped for a moment to the edge of the floor, where light shimmered faintly against the rune-lined platform. His hands remained loose, steady.

But his thoughts?

They didn’t settle.

They coiled—slow and persistent—beneath the quiet mask he wore. Beneath the steady hands and the expressionless calm he projected like a second skin.

He had told himself the mission came first.

That prophecy demanded precision.

That personal ties had to wait.

But she had waited.

And he hadn’t come.

Not even once.

At least once, he thought. I should’ve—

His fingers curled slightly, thumb brushing the inside of his palm where the divine tether still hummed—mute. Passive. Silent.

It wasn’t wrong to pursue the Kin.

But it was wrong to break a promise.

Especially to someone like her.

I’ll watch her tomorrow.

The thought landed gently in his mind, not like a vow, not like a confession.

Just a choice.

Quiet. Firm. Steady.

Tomorrow, I watch.

No excuses.

No delays.

If nothing else, he could keep that.

And so he leaned back into the curve of the carriage as it continued its descent through the darkening air—past spires, past gilded bridges, past Arcadia’s halo of ambition and silence.

His eyes closed, briefly.

And with them, the weight of what he’d missed—folded into the edges of what he still had time to see.

The scene ended.

And the night held its breath.

****

Friday morning broke over the academy grounds with a sharp chill in the air, the kind that settled into your bones and reminded you—this is the last one.

Final day.

Final dungeon.

The air buzzed with a pressure different from earlier in the week. Not just tension, but a quiet intensity. Every cadet walking toward the central training zones wore it on their face—the fatigue of days past, the anticipation of the day ahead. For some, this was a chance to redeem shaky performances. For others, the last opportunity to solidify an impression.

For Team Fourteen, it was about finishing strong.

Yesterday’s dungeon had been brutal. A spatial fracture early into the engagement had split them apart—cutting Astron and Irina off on one end of the crumbling battlefield, and isolating Sylvie and Jasmine on the other. The dungeon boss, a serpentine abomination layered in void-stitched plates, had descended on Sylvie’s side.

And somehow—

Sylvie had handled it.

While Jasmine had fought tooth and nail to create openings, it was Sylvie who adapted. Sylvie who anchored. Sylvie who dismantled its defenses with enchantments that rewrote the flow of battle. She had outmaneuvered, outlasted, and—at the final moment—struck true.

Not with brute strength.

But with precision.

And now, word had spread.

The scouts who had been watching Irina or waiting for Astron were looking elsewhere now, too. They whispered her name with curiosity. Sylvie Gracewind. The healer who could break monsters.

But Sylvie didn’t bask in it.

She hadn’t slept much the night before. Not from nerves—but from running through contingency patterns in her head. Over and over. She didn’t want yesterday to be a fluke.

She wanted today to be proof.

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